Some things will always make the Smiling Atheist smile. This is one of them:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20101201/NEWS06/12010350/-1/testpage/Nashville+billboards+claim+Jesus+will+return+May+21++2011
Here's one of the things I don't figure. If we know the end is coming, and we know the nature of that end (most go to Hell, the Elect are saved), then is there really anything to do? I doubt a last-second conversion is going to do the trick. Should we really all gather on a hilltop? Why? I figure, Jesus can just come over to the house if he's got business with me. Otherwise, I'm just going to watch Dexter until the lights go out.
Or, alternatively, I do believe the drill is that there will be an anti-Christ and there's that thousand-year reign and such. We've got plenty of time. Just relax. You'd still better mow the lawn.
Then there's this, from the article. Family Radio says they "want to save their friends and neighbors from God's judgments." Pardon? It's in the power of mortals to save other mortals from God's judgment? Kewl.
Finally, is there any significance to the fact that 21 May 2011 is on a Saturday? Score one for the Seventh-Day Adventists?
Well. At least the Christian God will end the world before those rotten Mayans can.
On a more serious note, the passage from Mark 13:32 (you'll have to read the whole business for the background) says something really interesting to me. Specifically,
"But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. "
The Father knows a thing that the Son does not? Extraordinary! That seems to undercut the post-Nicaean understanding of the nature of the Trinity. I really, honestly do feel sorry for the untold legions of theologians who tried so valiantly to bring any sort of consistency out of the chaotic collection that is the Christian Bible.
